LEADERS HUB
Year 1, Term 1, Week 3: Ideas for Middle Group
Week 3: The Good News... From Micah!
Lesson Objective:
Because of sin, people were separate from God and living difficult lives. God sent prophet’s like Micah to tell them that God would send a ruler/king to save them.
Bible Passage:
Micah 4:9-11 – Micah 5:1-4
Memory Verse:
Micah 5:4- Like a shepherd taking care of his sheep, this ruler will lead and care for his people by the power and glorious name of the Lord his God.
Story Telling: Emoji Hop!
Ask the kids if they remember anything from last week’s lesson, prompt them to recall:
- Life was good in the Garden
- Eve and Adam ate the fruit and were sent out of the garden away from God
- Life would be difficult from then on
Use the set of emoticon faces from the cupboard and have them stuck on chairs around a circle, or on the wall around the room, so that the kids are in the centre of the circle and can look around and see the faces
- Ask the children to listen carefully for emotion words in the story and find the face that best matches the emotion being felt, then go and stand beside it
READ:
God’s people were very sad… So sad that they were crying… ‘Booo hoooo hooo.’ They were crying because they did not have a king… they had no one (raise arms in the air hopelessly) to tell them what to do, so they were VERY confused and scared... They walked around moaning like they were in a lot of pain. ‘Moooaannnnn.’ They were scared because there were many people who wanted to catch them and put them in prison because they had been naughty and disobeyed God. They were surrounded by many angry people who just couldn’t wait to hurt them.
There is exciting news for God’s people though! Micah, a prophet of God has come to speak to them. He says that God will give them a king from the town of Bethlehem. The people did not need to be sad forever, because this king would take care of them. Like a shepherd taking care of his sheep, this ruler will lead and care for his people by the power of God! They would feel loved and secure with this King as their leader. That is happy news indeed!
We know now that this SPECIAL king who would love His people is Jesus, because He was born in Bethlehem, just like Micah said He would be! The people were in trouble, they were sad and hurt because they had sinned against God, but Jesus came to fix all of that! What happy news!
Quiz Questions:
1. How were God's people feeling at the start of the story? Sad/scared
2. Had God's people done the wrong thing? Yes
3. Did that get them into trouble and make people mad at them? Yes
4. Micah had a message of good news for the people, what was it? God was going to send a King
5. What was the king going to do? Care for His people and help them
6. Have we all done the wrong thing like God's people in this story? Yes
7. Can doing the wrong thing end us in trouble too? Yes
8. How do you think us doing the wrong thing could affect our relationship with God? It would ruin it
9. Does God have a plan to fix our sin and help us? Yes
10. Who was the special King from Bethlehem that God sent - the one that Micah told the people about MANY years before? Jesus
Game Idea: Oops Freeze!
- Split the kids into teams and set up a circle for the kids to walk around using markers
- Give each child a flat sports bean bag (from cupboard) - different colours for different teams
- The kids should all walk around the markers in a clock-wise direction, balancing their bean bag on their head
- If a bean bag falls off, that child must freeze and wait for another team member to come along and carefully bend down, pick up their bean bag and put it back on their head again, so that they can keep walking
- A team wins when the other team has all members frozen!
NB: depending on the balancing skills of kids in your group - you may choose to make it easier (allow kids to hold their own bean bag on their head while helping a team mate) or harder (make walking more challenging eg. walk with hands behind back, on tip toes, while clapping etc.)
Remind the kids that God's people were stuck because they had done the wrong thing, but Micah had a good news message for them - God was sending Jesus to help them!
Game Idea: Chinese Whispers
- Have the kids sit in a circle
- Whisper a message to the first kid in the circle and then have them whisper it to the kid next to them
- See if the message can make it all the way around the circle without changing!
Remind the kids that Micah had a message for God's people! God was sending a special King to help them!
Craft Idea: Cup Phones
.jpg)
- Before the lesson, gather paper cups, string, paper clips, scissors and a tack from the cupboard, as well as pencils/pens/sequins/glitter/glue etc. for decoration
- Download and print the Micah's Message template on coloured paper and cut out the speech bubbles - one of each per child
- Poke a hole in the base of each cup with the tack
- Have the kids decorate their cups and stick on the printout (one of the speech bubbles on each cup)
- Help the kids poke a length of string through the end of one cup, tie it off to a paper clip, then do he same with the other cup to make a phone
- Allow the kids to use their phones to say things to each other (the string must be tight!)
- Remind the kids that Micah had an important message for God's people - help was on it's way! Jesus was coming!
